Tiananmen massacre cautiously marked in China
Hong Kong (AsiaNews) - Ordinary Chinese are increasingly defying Communist authorities and publicly marking the Tiananmen Square massacre of 4 June 1989. In Hong Kong, organisers of the annual rally commemorating the crackdown appealed to mainlanders to join them in three days time.
On the mainland, no one can officially mark or even talk about the massacre; yet some mainlanders do travel to the former British crown colony to take part in the annual rally.
Lee Cheuk-yan, chairman of the Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, said his group hopes to see 150,000 people come out for the vigil.
Organisers of this year's Hong Kong protests say that a new museum honouring the dead attracted about 6,000 visitors in the month since it opened, a quarter of them from China, Lee noted.
He said that mainlanders are becoming more aware of human rights issues and that he hopes more of them will come out for this year's rally.
This year, the event seems to be drawing more scrutiny because of an apparent settlement of scores inside the Communist party ahead of next October's party leadership turnover. The most notable case involved the suspension of Bo Xilai, a powerful Politburo member and a former party boss in Chongqing.
Meanwhile, the economy of the Asian juggernaut continues to slow down because of Europe's sovereign debt crisis and high unemployment in the United States. Washington also imposed further limits on Chinese imports, weakening China's trade balance, now at its lowest point in three years. This has raised fears of higher inflation and social unrest.
Closer to home, more and more people want to rehabilitate the 1989 movement. Launched by students, the protest quickly attracted workers, farmers and university professors demanding more transparency from the government and less corruption, issues that have tarnished the reputation of the party ever since.
When China's strongman Deng Xiaoping ordered a crackdown, hundreds of people died in the streets of the capital. The actual number was never made public.
Chen Xitong, mayor of Beijing during the Tiananmen crackdown, called it "an avoidable event," blaming it on a power struggle within the party.
The father of one of victims of the crackdown hanged himself last week to protest the government's refusal to explain his son's death.
The wall of silence is starting to crack. This week Communist Party censors worked overtime to stop messages about the 1989 massacre on Twitter and Weibo, China's foremost microblogging site.
In different parts of the country, dissidents organised small rallies to remember the victims of 4 June, a trend that is growing.
On Wednesday and Thursday, police in Guiyang, capital of Guizhou province, arrested four activists-Mi Chongbiao, Yong Zhiming, Mo Jiangang, and Tian Zuxiang as well as Mi's wife, Li Kezhen-for demonstrating. They also searched the homes of Mi and Yong and confiscated their computers, Chinese Human Rights Defender reported. Two other members of the Guizhou Human Rights Forum, Liao Shuangyuan and Wu Yuqin, could not be reached by their friends.
On Wednesday, Fujian activist Fan Yanqiong led petitioners on a procession toward a local courthouse, where they unfurled banners demanding the government rectify its claim that the 1989 pro-democracy student movement was a "counterrevolutionary riot" and expressing support for Premier Wen Jiabao's calls for political reform.
Police followed Fan home, surrounded her building, and demanded entry into her apartment. They repeatedly pounded on her door and accused her of committing "illegal criminal acts."
Still, the legacy of the 1989 student movement continues to be felt, inspiring China's pro-democracy groups. Many of the survivors continue to demand reform, people like Chen Wei, Liu Xianbin, Chen Xi and Nobel Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, but there are many more.
.png)
